


Man of Cyrene

by Lucy Gillam (cereta)



Category: Christian Bible (New Testament)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-10
Updated: 2008-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereta/pseuds/Lucy%20Gillam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'll tell you many things about the man who carried Jesus' cross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man of Cyrene

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kass and Kilroy for the betas, and Lys and Xenacryst for the read throughs.
> 
> Written for kastaka

 

 

They say many things about me. You might not have heard them all. You might not even know my name. I'm only mentioned in one sentence of the Book, barely a footnote, a brief appearance on an all-important day.

But you may have heard more. They'll tell you I became a believer that day, that I took word of him back to my home. They'll tell you that my sons were important figures in the first communities. One poor sod, drunk and despairing and unable to accept the notion that a man rose from the dead, even started a rumor that I was hung on the cross instead. That, too, got written down.

I don't fault anyone for these tales. People like their stories neat and tidy. The character who shows up in the first scene of the last act must surely have a larger role to play, must surely do more than carry a piece of wood up a hill. His life must be changed forever, or he must be the twist no one is expecting.

But I didn't do any of those things. Instead, I did the one thing they'll never tell you, the thing they couldn't do.

I stayed.

***

The rain wasn't heavy that day, a faint drizzle barely above a mist. But it was cold and persistent, and just one more small misery on a day that needed no more. Simon pulled his cloak more tightly around his shoulders, although in truth, he wondered why he bothered. The cloth had been soaked in a mixture of rain, mud, and sweat hours ago in his morning labor, to say nothing of after, and had been given no time to dry. Still, if it provided him with no real warmth, the feel of the cloth on his arms helped distract him from the wood that was no longer there, but still present on the ends of his nerves.

The crowd was already beginning to thin. The gawkers, the ones who had followed the trail through the city out of curiosity alone, perhaps even to walk off the excesses of last night's meal, had left as soon as the three men were hoisted by their crossbeams, their ankles nailed to the sides where countless others had been nailed before. The weak of stomach had emptied theirs and fled, and the bloodthirsty had no real interest in the slow death that followed. Agonizing, yes, torturous, yes, but in the end, not much to watch but the struggles to breathe. Even the screams of pain became monotonous after a while. And really, who in Roman territory hadn't seen it before?

The priests, too, were gone, their expressions that of grim determination to complete an unsavory task.

A small contingent of soldiers remained. More, Simon suspected, than would usually be present for the execution of petty criminals. This was perhaps a caution for Passover; if Rome knew anything about the cultures it ruled, it was when to tighten its fist. But the more likely cause seemed to lie in the sign above the head of the one whose beam Simon had carried.

"King of the Jews," Simon muttered to himself. He couldn't read it himself, but one of the gawkers had been only too happy to oblige. He knew the Romans well enough to know a sick joke when he heard one, to know that he had been dragged from the crowds to carry the death of a madman on his already tired shoulders. Whether that madness was just the usual belief that the yoke of Rome could be thrown off, or some deeper, more potent delusion, Simon had not yet sussed. But madness it surely was. Who but a madman could hang there silently, not screaming or writhing against the nails?

He really should go home.

"...stupid son of an ass!"

A shoulder knocked into Simon, and he turned to watch a man drag a woman by him. Her clothing was patched and worn, her hair uncovered and disheveled. She broke away from her escort to grab a clod of dirt and hurl it at one of the men who had the familiar sign for "thief" above their heads.

" How will we live?" she shouted. "What will we eat?" She descended into obscenities as she was pulled away.

There were people gathered by Simon's man, as well.

_My man? I carried his beam because the soldiers told me to. I should be home now, warm, dry, with Rivkah, eating the remains of last night's meal and complaining that I cannot have my bread for a week._

Four women, three of them young, one recognizable by her expression to anyone with a heart as a mother watching her child die in perhaps the worst way imaginable. Holding her up was a young man, perhaps a few years older than Rufus would have been. The man on the cross lifted his head and spoke a few words to the two of them, words Simon could not hear. The young man nodded and gathered the woman more tightly to himself, and as a group, they turned to go.

Simon felt his throat tighten, and he thought again of Rivkah, home with Alexander in the house her parents had left them, in the city she had begged him to come to after Rufus...

"Home," he said to himself, and turned to go even as the group at his man's cross did the same.

He gave one glance back, and in that same instant, the dying man lifted his head. Their eyes met for only a few seconds, then the crown of thorns dipped again in weariness and pain.

Simon pulled his cloak around himself again. A few more moments.

The rain was finally drying up, and the soldiers gradually relaxed. Two of them walked by Simon, barely noticing he was there. One had been the man who'd grabbed him from the crowd, probably seeing only a man used to rough labor. Simon's Latin was far from complete, but he knew enough to make out a few phrases.

"...no one's coming for him. Scattered like..." Simon was sure that whatever the word that followed, it wasn't flattering.

Simon felt a rush of anger flood his face with blood. He felt anger at the people who weren't here, whoever it was the soldiers were waiting for. The soldiers wouldn't be here for the execution of a solitary madmen, which meant there were people who had encouraged this man. Where were they now, as he hung bleeding his life out and struggling to breathe? 

But he felt anger, too, at the soldiers, at himself even, for the casual dismissal of their courage. As if anyone in Roman territory didn't know the risks of angering Rome, of just drawing attention to yourself. It was bad enough that _he_ was here, where he had no business being. 

He should go home. 

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!" 

The voice was stronger than that of the two thieves, who had screamed themselves hoarse hours ago. Unlike their screams, it was not a plea for mercy. It was the cry of a man who knows no mercy will be coming. 

The man's head dropped again, and the soldiers went back to their dice game. It was beginning to get dark, early for this time of year. Simon couldn't stay much longer ( _should have left hours ago_ ). The Sabbath would be starting soon, and if it wouldn't be the first he'd missed, Rivkah was expecting him for this one. Besides, his shoulders ached, and his hips were beginning to complain, too. And it could be hours more, even another day, before...before this was over. 

Simon watched the thin, battered chest rise and fall slowly, and knew it would not be hours. Knew, too, that he couldn't leave, not before it was finished. Madman or not, no one should be alone on this hill. 

The man raised his head one more time, and now there was no doubt he was looking at Simon. He breathed out as a quiet sigh that somehow carried across the hill for Simon to hear, "It is finished." And then he lowered his head again.

Simon watched a minute more, knowing he would see only stillness. 

***

You know the rest. I went home to a wife who was only moderately worried and a son who expressed all the indignation of a twelve-year-old over my forced labor. Most days, I would have shushed him, talked him down, reminded him not to say such things too loudly. That day, I let him rant. 

A few of the followers came to me two days later, haunted and desperate for some word of their teacher's last hours. I would have sent them away - I had little enough to say, and no desire to draw more attention to myself - but Rivkah insisted on bringing them in, feeding them. I suppose this is how whoever wrote things down first knew my name, and those of my sons. The rumors began that very night: an empty grave, the sightings. 

The rest, as I said, you know. 

We went back to Cyrene a few years later. I watched my son grow, and later my grandchildren. I cried for Jerusalem with the rest of my people. I watched a would-be Messiah appear in our own desert, and watched the slaughter that resulted. At least Rome reprimanded someone for that one. 

In short, I lived my life, unremarkable except for one afternoon, one line in a book. 

You're waiting for a great truth, aren't you? You won't get one from me. There are too many great truths in the world as it is. So how about a small truth instead? Here is it: no one should die alone. If you think someday you'll meet a maker, someone who'll judge your time in this life, there are worse things you can tell them than that you made sure someone didn't die alone. Tell them that even if you couldn't take away their pain, couldn't stop the inevitable, that you watched, and witnessed. 

Tell them you stayed. 

 


End file.
